President Obama’s town hall-style meeting in Shanghai will likely not reach as broad an audience as originally anticipated. While the meeting will be televised, it will only be shown on Shanghai Television, though it will also be supplemented by online feeds. From Barbara Demick, for the Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Beijing – President Obama in Shanghai, live and uncensored?

At least, that was the billing the White House wanted. The president’s advance team had been pressing the Chinese government to allow a town hall-style meeting with students Monday to be broadcast live on Chinese television. Well, it looks like Obama may get to air live, but most people won’t be able to see it.

The TV coverage will be supplemented by feeds to Twitter and Chinese Web portals.

Negotiations are expected to continue until the last minute, but U.S. officials said they believed a compromise in principle had been struck.

“The two sides are still working on the final details such as how questions from netizens will be asked,” said Susan Stevenson, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman.

Under the arrangement, the meeting with students probably will not be aired on the national CCTV network, only on Shanghai Television. But the Associated Press Television Network will produce a live feed of the meeting, which could be aired by Phoenix Television, a Hong Kong-based network that has a limited audience in the mainland.

Python of chinaSMACK has translated a number of questions from netizens for Obama:

黑白相间是熊猫！:

Mr. Obama, I want to congratulate you on the Nobel Prize. Please answer me, how much has the great victory of the American army in Iraq and Afghanistan helped in winning you the prize?

水上行风:

Chinese people have a saying, “With a good wife, you will have half [of life’s] happiness”. Every successful man has a excellent women behind him, what do you think about your wife? Tell us some stories about your wife.

香香栗子:

Your country always complain about the trade imbalance with us. Then why don’t you lift the embargo of high technology products on us? We can make all low tech goods so tell me why/what we should buy from you?

Charles Custer, of ChinaGeeks, translates a piece by respected editorial writer Chang Ping. Chang Ping writes about a recent online conference meeting between the U.S. Embassy and several prominent Chinese bloggers:

The importance Obama places on the internet is undeniable, as he himself was a beneficiary of the internet during the 2008 presidential election. Moreover, freedom of speech has always been a principle American presidents must stress. But whether or not he can really help Chinese netizens to break down the “Great Firewall of China” is still in doubt. I feel some Chinese netizens have set their hopes too high, and fear that they may end up disappointed. First of all, the internet isn’t the purpose of Obama’s current trip. From the topics already announced, climate change, economic equilibrium, hostilities in Afghanistan and Iraq, the revaluation of the RMB, etc., will be the focal points of his discussions with Chinese leaders. Secondly, while being interviewed by a Reuters reporter a few days ago, Obama suggested that China and America are cooperative partners and also competing opponents in a friendly way. Because of this, he can’t really take an unyielding position on freedom of speech or human rights.

See also a CDT post titled “China’s Leading Blogger/Twitterer’s Words for President Obama.”

Update: Roland Soong also has compiled bloggers’ accounts of the conference. From Hecaitou’s blog:

Hu Yong (Peking University scholar), Jeremy Goldkorn (Danwei), Rao Jin (Anto-CNN), He Xuefeng (Southern Metropolis Daily), Anti (freelance writer), Chen Liang (freelance worker), Wang Zheng (Chinese Media University), Beifeng (freelance workers, Guangzhou), Wang Ershan (writer, Guangzhou), Qi Ge (Shanghai) were the bloggers.

My question was relatively simple. First I asked whether Obama will update his Twitter and Facebook as usual while in China? If so, will his updates be translated into Chinese? Finally, will the president show at the Shanghai meeting how he uses Internet tools such as Facebook and Twitter to stay in contact and interact with the people?

The response was that President Obama will update his Twitter and Facebook, as well as his China trip blog. At the same time, his media support team will provide Chinese translations so that Chinese netizens will understand. I admit that this question was disingenuous because the word “how” was spinning round and round my mouth but I never uttered it. But that should not be a problem that I should get a headache over.

Other bloggers asked more serious questions. My personal favorite was the question from Hu Yong: Since President Obama likes to talk about values, what are the common values between China and the USA? After a brief silence and some smiles, an American official gave an officialese-like response about the two sides sharing many common values from family values to world peace.

The State Department has set up a bilingual interface where Obama’s town hall meeting will be streamed live.